The Mojave Desert (pronounced: mo-hah-vee) is a rain shadow, mostly high desert area, that occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona in the United States. The Mojave Desert's boundaries are generally defined by the presence of Yucca brevifolia (Joshua trees), considered an indicator species for this desert. It is the driest of the North American deserts.[5] The desert is believed to support between 1,750 and 2,000 species of plants.[6]

It is roughly rectangular in shape,[5] bounded by the Great Basin Desert to the north,[5] and the Sonoran Desert to the south[5] and east. The topographical boundaries include the Tehachapi Mountains to the west, and the San Gabriel Mountains and San Bernardino Mountains to the south. The mountain boundaries are quite distinct since they are outlined by the two largest faults in California, the San Andreas and Garlock faults. The Mojave Desert displays typical basin and range topography. Higher elevations above 2,000 feet (610 m) in the Mojave are commonly referred to as the High Desert; however, Death Valley is the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level and is one of the Mojave Desert's more notorious places. It occupies less than 50,000 square miles, making it the smallest of the North American deserts.[5]

The Mojave Desert is often referred to as the "high desert", in contrast to the "low desert", the Sonoran Desert to the south. The Mojave Desert is generally lower than the Great Basin Desert to the north. The term Mojave originates from the Spanish language while the spelling Mohave comes from modern English. Both are used today, although the Mohave Tribal Nation officially uses the spelling Mojave; the word is a shortened form of Hamakhaave, their endonym in their native language, which means 'beside the water'.[7]

While most of the Mojave Desert is sparsely populated, several large cities can be found there including Mojave Airport (also known as Mojave Air and Space Port), located within Mojave Desert.

The Mojave is a desert of temperature extremes and two distinct seasons. Winter months bring temperatures dipping to around 20 °F (−7 °C) on valley floors, and below 0 °F (−18 °C) at higher elevations. Storms moving from the Pacific Northwest can bring rain and in some places even snow. More often, the rain shadow created by the Sierra Nevada as well as mountain ranges within the desert such as the Spring Mountains, bring only clouds and wind. In longer periods between storm systems, winter temperatures in valleys can approach 80 °F (27 °C).

Spring weather continues to be influenced by Pacific storms, but rainfall is more widespread and occurs less frequently after April. By early June, it is rare for another Pacific storm to have a significant impact on the region's weather; and temperatures after the middle of May are normally above 90 °F (32 °C) and frequently above 100 °F (38 °C).

Summer weather is dominated by heat. Temperatures on valley floors can soar above 120 °F (49 °C) and above 130 °F (54 °C) at the lowest elevations. Low humidity, high temperatures, and low pressure, draw in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico creating thunderstorms across the desert southwest known as the North American monsoon. While the Mojave does not get nearly the amount of rainfall that the Sonoran desert to the south receives, monsoonal moisture will create thunderstorms as far west as California's Central Valley from mid-June through early September.

Clouds reflecting high wind conditions from orographic lift in the Mojave Desert

Autumn is generally pleasant, with one to two Pacific storm systems creating regional rain events. October is one of the driest and sunniest months in the Mojave; and temperatures usually remain between 70 °F (21 °C) and 90 °F (32 °C) on the valley floors.

After temperature, wind is the most significant weather phenomenon in the Mojave. Across the region windy days are common; and also common in areas near the transition between the Mojave and the California low valleys, including near Cajon Pass, Soledad Canyon and the Tehachapi areas. During the June Gloom, cooler air can be pushed out into the desert from Southern California. In Santa Ana wind events, hot air from the desert blows out into the Los Angeles basin and other coastal areas. Wind farms in these areas generate power from these winds.

The other major weather factor in the region is elevation. The highest peak within the Mojave is Charleston Peak at 11,918 feet (3,633 m);[3] while the Badwater Basin in Death Valley is 279 feet (85 m) below sea level.[4] Accordingly, temperature and precipitation ranges wildly in all seasons across the region.

The Mojave Desert has not historically supported a fire regime because of low fuel loads and connectivity. However, in the last few decades, invasive annual plants (e.g., Bromus spp., Schismus spp., Brassica spp.) have facilitated fire; which has significantly altered many areas of the desert. At higher elevations, fire regimes are regular but infrequent.

Geography

The Mojave Desert is defined by numerous Colorado Plateau. This area is known for its incised canyons, high mesas and plateaus, and flat strata; a unique geographic locality found nowhere else on earth.

Cities and regions

While the Mojave Desert itself is sparsely populated, it has increasingly become urbanized in recent years. The metropolitan areas include: Lancaster, the largest California city in the desert; and over 850,000 people live in areas of the Mojave attached to the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, including Palmdale and Lancaster, (referred to as the Antelope Valley), Victorville, Apple Valley and Hesperia (referred to as the Victor Valley) attached to the Inland Empire metropolitan area, the 14th largest in the nation.

The California portion of the desert also contains Edwards Air Force Base and Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, noted for experimental aviation and weapons projects, and the largest Marine Corps base in the world at Twentynine Palms. The US Army also maintains Fort Irwin & the National Training Center (NTC) which is another major training area for the United States Military. Mojave airport is also home to a long term storage facility for large airplanes due to extremely dry non-corrosive weather conditions and a hard ground ideal for parking aircraft. The airport also houses the Air and Space Port and was one of the test centres for the Virgin Galactic Fleet.

Other than the Colorado River on the eastern half of the Mojave, few long streams cross the desert. The Mojave River is an important source of water for the southern parts of the desert. The Amargosa River flows from the Great Basin Desert south to near Beatty, Nevada, then underground through Ash Meadows before returning to the surface near Shoshone, California, disappearing underground again a short while later and has its final outlet into the southern end of Death Valley. The riverbed passes under SR 127 near Dumont Dunes before turning north into Death Valley National Park.

Among the more popular and unique tourist attractions in the Mojave is the self described world's tallest thermometer at 134 feet (41 m) high, which is located along Interstate 15 in Baker, California. The newly renovated Kelso Depot is the Visitor Center for the Mojave National Preserve. Nearby the massive Kelso Dunes are a popular recreation spot. Nipton, California, located on the northern entrance to the Mojave National Preserve, is a restored ghost town founded in 1885.

The flora of the Mojave Desert help define what is called the Mojave Desert in that the desert itself is generally considered to be outlined by the extent of growth of one of its plants, the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia). Mojave Desert flora is not a vegetation type, although plants in the area have evolved in isolation because of physical barriers. This area includes southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona in the United States. The flora are adapted to extremely hot and dry conditions, but generally not as extreme as the adaptations needed for survival in the flora of the Sonoran Desert, which has an overlap in its major flora, such as the creosote bush (Larrea tridentata).

West Mojave Plan litigation

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages public lands in the Mojave Desert as part of its "crown jewels of the American West" National Landscape Conservation System. It has designated numerous large off-road vehicle open use areas on public lands in the western Mojave Desert, including El Mirage, Jawbone Canyon, Rasor, Spangler Hills, Stoddard Valley, Dove Spring Canyon, Dumont Dunes, and the world's largest open off-road vehicle use area, Johnson Valley. Open areas designated for unrestricted vehicle travel in the western Mojave Desert total 363,480 acres (1,471.0 km2). Several additional open areas dedicated to unrestricted vehicle travel on public lands have been designated in the northern and eastern Colorado (NECO) Desert. In 2002, BLM designated all washes in the southeastern third of the NECO planning area as also open to unrestricted vehicle travel. This was followed in 2003 by BLM expanding the off-road vehicle network in the western Mojave Desert to enhance off-road vehicle recreation opportunity. In 2004, relative to the case of Center for Biological Diversity, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Bureau of Land Management, et al., Defendants; the United States District court enjoined "all off-road vehicle use in the washes of the NECO Desert planning area pending issuance of a new biological opinion.".[13]:a A new biological opinion was subsequently issued and BLM's open wash designation in the NECO planning area was reinstated. In 2006, several environmental groups protested an additional route network expansion designated under the West Mojave Desert (WEMO) plan.

In 2009, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ruled against the BLM's proposed designation of additional off-road vehicle use allowance in the western Mojave Desert. According to the ruling, the BLM violated its own regulations[14] when it designated approximately 5,000 miles (8,000 km) of off-roading routes in 2006.[15] According to Judge Ilston, the BLM's designation was significantly "flawed because it does not contain a reasonable range of alternatives" to limit damage to sensitive habitat.[16] Judge Illston found that the bureau had inadequately analyzed the routes' impacts on air quality, soils, plant communities, riparian habitats, and sensitive species such as the endangered Mojave fringe-toed lizard, pointing out that the desert and its resources are "extremely fragile, easily scarred, and slowly healed."[16]

The court also found that the BLM failed to follow route designation procedures established in the agency’s own California Desert Conservation Area Plan, which allowed visitors to create hundreds of illegal OHV routes during the past three decades. The plan normally requires the BLM to consider the impacts to private property, non-motorized recreation opportunity, and natural resources before establishing off road areas.[14] The adopted West Mojave plan amendment was found to have violated the BLM's own manual of regulations, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).[15] The ruling was considered a success for a coalition of conservation groups, including the California Native Plant Society, Friends of Juniper Flats, the Alliance for Responsible Recreation, Community Off-Road Vehicle Watch, The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and The Wilderness Society, who together initiated the legal challenge in late 2006.[16]

In 2011, Judge Illston ruled on a remedy request submitted by the ten involved environmental organizations. BLM in this ruling was directed to complete a revised WEMO route designation complying with all laws and regulations by March 2014. The agency is also required per this ruling to place signs on all off-road vehicle routes which are legal to use, create a monitoring plan to determine if illegal vehicle use is occurring, and provide additional enforcement to prevent illegal use.[17]

^Mazzucchelli, Vincent G., "The Southern Limits of the Mohave Desert, California", The California Geographer, 1967, VIII: 127–133. This study provides original maps of the Mohave and adjacent deserts in the southwestern states.

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